Time to back it up to Tokyo, we were there over a month ago. It is hard to believe how time flies! Seriously, we have been here for over a month and I know we have done so much, but at the same time it feels like we don’t have enough time, it is such a paradox.

Tokyo was our first stop on our Japan trip, as expected it was a metropolitan city like many others, there were tall buildings, an advanced transit system and lots of places to eat with a dabble of history. Tokyo gently eased us into the cultural subtleties that Japan would introduce us to. Tokyo felt safe and friendly and we had no problem wandering the streets in search of good food and tourist sites.

As usual, Ed had done a great job of finding places for us to eat, including the first night when we arrived and he planned for us to go to a nearby ramen place. We never did find that place, but instead we found a quaint little local bar that was one of my favourite meals of the entire trip. The food was yummy, but the experience was really what made it memorable. We wandered in and were greeted by 5 business men drinking beer and one waitress who quickly realized that our lack of Japanese and her lack of English was going to be an issue, but she remedied it by asking the business men for help. They got as far as to getting us beer and then she disappeared into the back and then re-emerged with a man who we guessed was the chef. Turns out he was the chef and owner and spoke enough English to understand that we would eat whatever he recommended. He seemed delighted by the fact that we were giving him a chance to show off his skills and continuously came out of the kitchen with small plates of food. The first dish was cheese springrolls, my personal favourite and a dish I continued to talk about for the rest of the trip. The springrollls were followed by a chicken dish, a beef dish and finally a thick piece of seared bacon.

Tokyo continued to please us with more eating adventures.

As I think back to our Tokyo trip, I remember rain. Each day we were there was a mixture of wet snow or rain, which only dampened our mood slightly as we searched for recommended foodie spots. Like the morning we got up extra early to go and eat sushi breakfast. We arrived shortly after 6am and were not the first ones there. There was a lineup for the tiny restaurant and we waited for nearly 2 hours before finally getting into the infamous omakase breakfast. The sushi breakfast included 13 courses of super fresh sushi and 3 excited sushi chefs who seemed to be performing sushi theatre for us. The restaurant sat 15 people around a sushi bar were each course was served on a continuous bar top. Each piece of sushi was announced by our chef and we were told whether or not to add soya sauce depending on where the fish was from. Each piece was super fresh, including the surf clam that was still moving when it was served to us. To the dismay of our chef, I let Ed eat my piece and he seemed disappointed that I didn’t like it. I thoroughly enjoyed almost all the pieces except the baby shrimp one which was a little too slimey for my liking. It was definitely worth trying and the long wait.

And then there was the foodie adventure that took us down a dark alley to a hidden ramen place. Another recommendation that Ed dug up clues on and eventually found, the restaurant is marked by a large bone outside a black cloth vestible, certainly not a place you would just stumble into without knowing it was there. It was like we found a sercret society. This place only sat 5 people, we arrived early for dinner, around 5:30pm so we were the first of the dinner crowd. The man who runs the little shop jumped into action when we arrived. We were not the first tourists to find this place, he was prepared with an English menu with 5 dishes you could order. We ordered 2 ramen meals and watched as he got down to business. He fired up the soup pot, sliced pork and set the timer for the noodles. He had his method perfected to the second. As the soup boiled, he placed the noodles in a bowl, ladled the soup over top and lay the meat for presentation and served it to us with a bowl of fried onions for garnish. The broth was flavourful and the noodles cooked to order, we both thought the soup was a bit salty, but still very tasty.

I swear, we did do other things than eat…although it doesn’t really seem like it 🙂

Jenn

Nearly 3 weeks of backpacking, 3 overnight trains, 7 cities later, with 12kg of custom clothes and souvenirs and our tour of Vietnam is complete. We experienced Vietnam from north to south, starting in Hanoi and ending in Ho Chi Minh with stops in Hue, Khe San, P’rao, Hoi An, and Nha Trang.

Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh city are the capitals of the north and south and were the bookends of our trip. I think these cities still possess a lot of their history and cultural roots, while being influenced by a surgence of motorized vehicles, tourism and KFC. These cities are flooded with motorcycles that obviously follow the mantra of organized chaos. The street can appear to be a one way street until your taxi or bus has to turn down it and then you realize that lanes actually run both ways depending on the traffic light. The tour guides speak with Aussie accents and say “mate”, the menus have pizza and pasta dishes, and everywhere you look there is another hotel. KFC is the only foreign restaurant that we saw in both Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh city.

From Hanoi, we took our first overnight train. It was a Livitrain which are the “luxury” trains of the route. That means you get a bottle of water and a cup of noodles in the morning, you are guaranteed air conditioning and the sheets were slightly nicer, it also means only foreigners pay the extra fees to be on it. This was our longest overnight ride starting at 7pm and ending at nearly 8am the next morning. Ed and I took the upper bunks, we chatted with our fellow passengers, a guy from England and a lady from France, both traveling on their own; until it was time to sleep. It was a little difficult at the beginning and I woke up each time the train stopped at a station, eventually I got the hang of it for a not so restful sleep. This train ride was the first of three so the experience was still intriguing and even slightly enjoyable, this can not be said for the other 2 rides.

Getting to Hue by train seemed like a mission accomplished and being picked up by Hieu and Ngoc our motorcycle tour guides was the icing on the cake! We would spend 5 days with them exploring a more local view of inner Vietnam. I really enjoyed the tour more than I thought I would, we got a private history lesson about the war and Vietnamese culture from Hieu, we shared meals at local spots, and to see Vietnam at the same level as the locals and not from a tour bus. Even though my butt was in need of a rest by the ended of it, I missed seeing them in the morning the next day.

When we arrived in Hoi An, I was excited to get to tour around on our own and by foot. We stayed for 5 days, the longest leg of our trip for the anticipated custom tailor shops. There are nearly 600 custom tailors in Hoi An and each one is distinct and the identical to the shop next door at the same time. I liked Hoi An the most, it was a relaxing pit stop in our trek from north to south and it was a good mixture of traditional architecture, local food spots, folk customs and shopping!

From Hoi An, we took the train to Nha Trang for a 2 day retreat from doing anything. We stayed in a beautiful resort on the beach and did nothing but work on our tans. And by pure coincidence ended up bumping into Ed’s cousin by marriage, they haven’t seen each other since they were kids.

And for the third time, we took the train to Ho Chi Minh city. This ride was the shortest, but the anticipation and my imagination made waiting for it very stressful and the delay made it almost unbearable, but we made it. By this point, we were fairly travelled out and the weather had heated up to the 30’s, so I think as a result HCMC has left the least lasting impression on me. I did however enjoy the market where we got quite a few souvenirs and I practiced my bargaining techniques.

Lessons learned from this trip:
1. In bigger cities, trust the hotel chains that have 4 or 5 hotels in the city, they know what they are doing.
2. Don’t always trust tripadvisor reviews.
3. Taking the train for the experience is fun, but then after that fly.
4. Good tour guides make all the difference.

I really enjoyed our getaway to Vietnam. Vietnam is a country shaped by war, there is history, tragedy, and reunification that bonds and divides the country. I learned a lot about the American War.

Jenn

We like to think of ourselves as foodies. We pride ourselves on finding unique local food spots that are either famous, labelled as the best or must tries as well as the occasional stumbled upon finds that are shockingly delightful and sometimes our most memorable experiences. We do this at home and with every trip we go on, people usually make fun of us that our vacation albums are filled more of pictures of food then of ourselves. Food is our passion.

Usually when we go on trips, we are likely to have one or two mishaps, a place be closed or not as good as we expected. Since this trip is like compiling many trips into one, we were bound to have more of this occurrences and there has been no shortage of them. Often part of the fun for us is the scavenger hunt like game we play to find the place, we have a map, some tidbits of clues from blogs and sometimes a picture of what the signage looks like. Sometimes we wander up and down side streets looking for the infamous establishment and when we find it, we are so excited that maybe it makes the meal taste even better.

However, there are the few times where we have food blunders. Like, after ordering what the place is famous for, we order a few more dishes and those dishes just are no where near comparison. This trip has resulted in more than a few mishaps, the time when the place wasn’t there at all was a little less than humorous. I was feeling under the weather but was up to helping Ed find a place that was supposed to be where Ma Po tofu was invented. With our treasure map in hand, a few clues from blogs, we took the bus to the intersection and began wandering up and then down the street. Finally, we asked a street vendor about the address and she pointed at the one we had been standing outside of, so we went into ask if we were at the right place and it turns out the restaurant we were looking for had moved to Beijing! Ok, it is a little humorous… I wouldn’t trade in our adventures for anything, I love them!

Inspire yourself!

Jenn

I wanted to be able to capture what I felt while in Japan and yet the words are I am putting together don’t seem to really express the essence. Japan was amazing. Japan was definitely on our list of places to visit during this trip and what I consider the first vacation part of this trip. Hong Kong has become more familiar and we are able to settle into a routine there. Japan was a new place to discover and I was surprised to see the depth of culture and how well conserved it is all over Japan.

It was easy to get mesmerized with the customs in Japan. There was a simplicity to the details, the beauty of the presentations of the food and polite delicate bowing; it was so gracious. I really loved Japan more than I thought I would. A few of the most breath-taking and memorable moments that stood out to me and whether I write about them here or not, I am sure I will remember, but I also wanted to share.

While we were in Japan, we landed in Tokyo for 4 days, then met up with our friends in Osaka for a night, before heading to Mt. Koya to stay in a temple for a night, to Kyoto and then back to Osaka before flying to Beijing.

I was going to try and jam little tidbits about each place into this one blog, but have decided instead to take even more time to slowly write about each place and be able to slightly relive and capture the experience. This trip within a trip has lingered with me and has me thinking about the next time I would visit Japan when I would go. We are thinking next time in the Spring for the Cherry Blossoms and not so chilly weather.

It has been just over one month since we started our excursion, yet it feels much longer. When we started this, my plan was to blog every time we were on a plane, but that plan didn’t pan out and then as I reflect on what has happened in the last 30ish days the small details are starting to slip away and I regret not writing more. Once a week seems too little and every day seems like too much, so I am going to try and stick to a 3 day plan.

In a short time we have already been to Hong Kong, Tokyo, Osaka, Kyoto, Koyasan, Beijing and Harbin and our adventure is just ramping up. Now, since I can’t go back in time, I am going to do my best to remember what we have done over the last month and try to write more about what we did. I have a feeling that all the shrines, palaces and temples are starting to blur together and I don’t want that to happen to the rest of this adventure. So somehow, I am going to try and write a new blog every 3 days as well as work backwards to remember the tidbits that make this trip last forever.

Inspire Yourself!

Jenn

We spent just under a week in Hong Kong, it is completely different that the last two times we came. The last two times were for vacation and this time it has taken on a different flavour. We are staying at my grandmother’s apartment in North Point. I feel like we are caught in limbo between a vacation and trying to find a routine. We are having breakfasts and dinners at home and going out to explore during the day. We spend more time wandering streets rather than with a deliberate sightseeing agenda.

Here are a few of my favourite things so far:

One of our main activities (and my favourite) is working out each morning. Usually on vacation, we take a break from our real lives in every way. This time, we made a commitment to try and make this as much like our real life as possible, exercise being a part of it. So each day, we have woken up and went out to exercise. I really like going to Victoria Park and seeing what the locals are doing. As space is limited in apartments, the park is laid out with so many amenities and many people use it to meet up for tai chi classes, individual workouts and running around the jogging track.

We won’t be in Hong Kong for Lunar New Year. We are going to be in Japan with our friends. I wanted to get some pre-New Year action in and see what it is like. I am pretty big on superstitions and learning about fortunes in different cultures. If I get a fortune or get to make a wish, I put a lot of thought into it, I don’t take this lightly. So, we made a trip to the Wong Tai Sin temple to see people preparing for Lunar New Years. There were people lighting incense and people praying for good fortunes for the new year. I watched many people take wooden sticks to small stools and place offerings of roast chicken, fruits and other treats as they shook the container of wooden sticks waiting for their fortune to come out. I really wanted to partake in this activity and get a fortune, but without knowing exactly how to do it, I would rather not get a bad fortune.

And then there is riding the Ding, the Ding is what they call the streetcar in Hong Kong, my guess is cause it makes a ding sound. The streetcar runs right outside our apartment and goes in the general direction of a lot of things we are doing. The Ding is a double decker streetcar and it costs $2.30 HK which is about 30 cents! You pretty much can’t beat that for a way to get to see the city, the local hustle and bustle and on the cheap.

As the limbo subsides we head out for a long haul trip to Tokyo and back into vacation mode.

Jenn